Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Hunted by Shalini Boland @SizzlingPR and @ShaliniBoland

A dark and suspenseful vampire
adventure that spans the centuries from modern-day England to the wilds of
ancient Scythia.

Maddy and Alex are running
scared. The Cappadocian vampires are closing in. But Alex is so busy worrying
about the vampires, he can’t see the terrible threat right under his nose…

Something else is hunting
Alexandre. Something ancient and powerful.

Be swept away in this
heart-pounding tale of ancient legend, star-crossed love and nail-biting
supernatural adventure. This is the climatic finale of The Marchwood Vampire
Series.

EXCERPT

Tommo took his mug of Cheerios
over to his desk and began eating. Over the crunch of cereal, he heard distant
fireworks. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, and already people were
celebrating the New Year. Why was everyone so eager to get to next year,
anyway? Were their lives really so bad that they needed to constantly look
forward to tomorrow and next week and next month and next year?

Hold on… that noise? He had
thought it was fireworks, but… The hair on the back of Tommo’s neck began to
prickle. He realised that the popping sound might not actually be distant
fireworks. It might be something a lot closer – like maybe a light tapping at
his window.

Tommo placed his mug and spoon
down on the desk, and carefully finished chewing the contents of his mouth.
From the dark window, his own scared reflection stared back at him. Surely he
must have imagined the noise. His apartment was four floors up, and there was
no balcony. No tree with branches that could be scraping against the window.
But, there it was again. A rhythmic tap, tap, tap.

Tommo pushed himself away from
the window, his chair rolling backward over the parquet floor. The tapping had
now been replaced by a squeaking sound. What the… Was that a circle appearing
on the window? Yes, someone was drawing a large circle on the window with their
fingernail! He had to be hallucinating. Maybe the milk was off and he was
coming down with food poisoning.

Just then, the circle of glass
moved. It tipped out of the window and crashed onto his computer monitor. Tommo
jumped up in terror, as the glass slid down and landed with a thud on his desk,
unbroken. A rush of frigid air flew into the apartment. Tommo gasped, too
scared to run or even scream.

He had to get out of here. He had
to leave the apartment. But he hadn’t left the apartment in months. Someone or
something was out there in the darkness. An arm came through the empty circle
of air. Tommo panted in fear, pushed the chair out of his way and backed up
against his front door. Someone was climbing through the window. Coming to get
him.

In the blink of a cursor, that
someone appeared in front of him, staring down at his face with murderous eyes.
Tommo shrank back even further, trying to melt into the wooden door, wishing he
had the courage to open it and run away from whoeverthiswas.

‘Who are you?’ he squeaked. ‘What
do you want? Take whatever you need. Just, please, don’t hurt me.’

‘Tommo,’ the man said. How did he
know his name? This man wasn’t like anyone Tommo had ever met before. He was
blonde and pale, with piercing eyes and the whitest teeth. He looked like a
character from one of his games. He wasn’t quite amaneither. More, a boy. But the scariest
boy he’d ever seen. Young and old at the same time. Like an angel, or a devil.
Not… human.

‘You had a visitor today,’ the
man-boy continued, his voice a hissing whisper. The trace of a foreign accent.

‘A visitor?’ Tommo repeated. He
felt as though he was watching himself from above, his mind divorced from his
body.

‘Yes. A girl.’

‘She came here, yes,’ Tommo
stammered.

‘She asked you to do something
for her. But you said no. Why did you say no?’

‘I… I… can do it. If you want me
to do it. I can do what she asked.’

‘Now.’

‘Yes, yeah, sure. It… it might
take a while, though. A few hours at least.’

‘A photograph has been sent to your
phone and to your email,’ the man said. ‘Email back when you find a match for
the girl in the photo.’

‘What happens if I can’t find a
match?’

The man bent down, so his face
was millimetres from his own. ‘Do you see the hole I made in your window, Tommo?’

Tommo nodded.

‘Look at it,’ the man said. He
took hold of Tommo’s chin and turned his face toward the window, to the newly
made hole. The man’s hand was hard and cold like ice. Not like a human hand at
all.

‘I can see. I can see the window,
and I can see the hole.’

‘Good,’ replied the man. ‘It’s a
long way down, Tommo. A long way down.’

Tommo felt sick. He felt the
Cheerios working their way back up his gullet.

‘Remember,’ the man said, letting
go of Tommo’s chin. ‘Find the girl in the photo.’

And then the man was gone. Just
like that. Gone. And Tommo’s Cheerios finally made a reappearance all over the
parquet floor.

Meet the Author

Shalini Boland lives in Dorset, England with her husband and two noisy boys. Before kids, she was signed toUniversal Music Publishing as a singer/songwriter, but now she spends her days writing dark adventures (in between doing the school run and hanging out endless baskets of laundry).

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